Some whispers via an AMuS video in German that it's done and McLaren have ditched Honda. Alonso has stopped following Honda accounts and removed pictures of the McHonda and all things Honda apparently(Not on twitter myself so can't confirm).

Just waiting for STR-Honda deal to be finalised before any announcement as that domino has to fall next for Renault to be free to supply McLaren.

It's inevitable now, isn't it?

I read an article on ESPN today which said that McLaren was considering making their own engines if the 2021 regulations prove to be much less complex. They haven't a prayer now but simpler units woulds see them making the foray..

Seems so. It's a real shame but I think unfortunately it's probably the right call at this point.

Yeah I read something similar. Would be interesting for sure, I think Red Bull are pretty keen to try something similar themselves but they're going to be in a pretty cushy position to have a look at Honda's plans and they've got Aston Martin keen as well.

McLaren could work with Ricardo and maybe Zytek on the non standardised KERS stuff maybe?.

_________________"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

The works team that had a well regarded Honda engine and designed a chassis that won the WCC with an engine it wasn't designed around?

They are currently struggling, and may not get through their problems, but even the previous incarnations that were successful had pain to begin with...

So successful that they sold the team for one British pound.

The chassis was good, the engine, nope, not good.

Didn't mention success, there was none till it was sold because all the research to get them up front had been done when they axed the project.Can't find links now, but what I remember was the Honda engine was well regarded. What leads you to believe the engine wasn't good?

Like most people, Joe Saward expects McLaren to use Renault engines and Honda to supply STR. But he goes into more detail. He thinks Red Bull is looking for an exit plan from F1 by the end of 2020 for both its teams, and would use Honda engines up to that point not in 2018 - STR will be the guinea pig for a year) at a lower cost than Renault's "Tag Heuer" engines. RB's relationship with Renault has not been great in their post-WCC years, and Renault has its own team anyway.

It looks like Horner and Newey would stay at Red Bull but it would become Aston Martin. The two currently have a supercar project together. RB would remain a sponsor, but instead of paying they would just lower the sale price.

STR could remain with Honda but who knows who would become the team's owner.

Like most people, Joe Saward expects McLaren to use Renault engines and Honda to supply STR. But he goes into more detail. He thinks Red Bull is looking for an exit plan from F1 by the end of 2020 for both its teams, and would use Honda engines up to that point not in 2018 - STR will be the guinea pig for a year) at a lower cost than Renault's "Tag Heuer" engines. RB's relationship with Renault has not been great in their post-WCC years, and Renault has its own team anyway.

It looks like Horner and Newey would stay at Red Bull but it would become Aston Martin. The two currently have a supercar project together. RB would remain a sponsor, but instead of paying they would just lower the sale price.

STR could remain with Honda but who knows who would become the team's owner.

Joe is taking several stabs in the dark there.

It's long been rumoured Red Bull want to step back from F1 (as team owner), but there is little evidence of it. They are a recent 4 x WDC & WCC champion and they want that success again.

Aston Martin is such a minor relationship in comparison.

I think Red Bull is more likely to end up with Porsche engines in 2021 if that goes ahead. Porsche don't want a works team and Red Bull are the best customer option. Red Bull and VW also have an existing relationship.

The works team that had a well regarded Honda engine and designed a chassis that won the WCC with an engine it wasn't designed around?

They are currently struggling, and may not get through their problems, but even the previous incarnations that were successful had pain to begin with...

So successful that they sold the team for one British pound.

The chassis was good, the engine, nope, not good.

Didn't mention success, there was none till it was sold because all the research to get them up front had been done when they axed the project.Can't find links now, but what I remember was the Honda engine was well regarded. What leads you to believe the engine wasn't good?

Actually after testing the Brawn for the first time with the Mercedes engine they were surprised how much better the engine was than the Honda engine.

Didn't mention success, there was none till it was sold because all the research to get them up front had been done when they axed the project.Can't find links now, but what I remember was the Honda engine was well regarded. What leads you to believe the engine wasn't good?

Actually after testing the Brawn for the first time with the Mercedes engine they were surprised how much better the engine was than the Honda engine.

Like most people, Joe Saward expects McLaren to use Renault engines and Honda to supply STR. But he goes into more detail. He thinks Red Bull is looking for an exit plan from F1 by the end of 2020 for both its teams, and would use Honda engines up to that point not in 2018 - STR will be the guinea pig for a year) at a lower cost than Renault's "Tag Heuer" engines. RB's relationship with Renault has not been great in their post-WCC years, and Renault has its own team anyway.

It looks like Horner and Newey would stay at Red Bull but it would become Aston Martin. The two currently have a supercar project together. RB would remain a sponsor, but instead of paying they would just lower the sale price.

STR could remain with Honda but who knows who would become the team's owner.

Joe is taking several stabs in the dark there.

It's long been rumoured Red Bull want to step back from F1 (as team owner), but there is little evidence of it. They are a recent 4 x WDC & WCC champion and they want that success again.

Aston Martin is such a minor relationship in comparison.

I think Red Bull is more likely to end up with Porsche engines in 2021 if that goes ahead. Porsche don't want a works team and Red Bull are the best customer option. Red Bull and VW also have an existing relationship.

I agree with you, except for the part of the "want success again". I am sure they want success again, but it depends who in the team is thinking about that, and who is thinking about other aspects. I am sure Marko, Horner, Newey are on one side but Mateschitz might be on the other. The first 3 are into the process part of the team, the other is in management. There could be some different schools of thinking here. So while yes, all of them want success in F1, it all depends if Mateschitz sees F1 interesting commercially going on from here.

This I think was where Bernie was good, he managed to limit the damage of the sporting side from commercial decisions. Ross Brawn has excellent sporting knowledge, but I am not sure he has enough vision to take sporting decisions that go hand in hand with commercial ones. Bratches has a lot of commercial vision, but 0 sporting, hence the difficulty of taking commercial decisions that go hand in hand with sporting ones.

From a corporate point of view, the combination of Bratches and Brawn seems the optimal decision, but I am not sure how this would work in practice.

Another thing you have to take into consideration, Liberty is doing it's best to start with a clean sheet in this sport. By this I mean slowly taking decisions that will move the sport to what they think is the starting point for what they want to build.

All in all, I think the biggest advantage F1 had with Bernie, was that it was ran and operated like a SME, therefore it could react quickly to things thrown at it. Liberty are finding out these days that the thing operates like an SME, and the corporate environment they operate in has to be adapted. Another thing I've read somewhere, but I can't remember where, is that Carey was saying something along the lines that "F1 was not well organised" as too many decisions had to be taken by him directly, and they should be delegated to assistants, but at that moment he just felt he could not.

I have read in several places that Red Bull want out of F1 because it is not seen as leading edge enough.I think I read that they hoped the space 'thing' would have taken over by now, and were concerned because they had committed financially until 2020. That is on hold, so maybe no big hurry to exit. Then again, there are new engine rules coming up so no doubt the Helmet will be telling us Red Bull are withdrawing. He may be right this time though.

The works team that had a well regarded Honda engine and designed a chassis that won the WCC with an engine it wasn't designed around?

They are currently struggling, and may not get through their problems, but even the previous incarnations that were successful had pain to begin with...

So successful that they sold the team for one British pound.

The chassis was good, the engine, nope, not good.

Didn't mention success, there was none till it was sold because all the research to get them up front had been done when they axed the project.Can't find links now, but what I remember was the Honda engine was well regarded. What leads you to believe the engine wasn't good?

I remember the Honda engine as being quite the disappointment because the performance of the car was very substandard. Honda as a works team was never a serious threat to win or even challenge for the title.

Why I wanted to know is to see how far off what Honda pay Mclearn, and Alonsos wages, from outright owning the team.

I think they missed a good opportunity with Manor, and with Sauber. They do not need to run the team, just buy it and put a top manager in. They can still just be the engine guys, but have more options and no crap back

The works team that had a well regarded Honda engine and designed a chassis that won the WCC with an engine it wasn't designed around?

They are currently struggling, and may not get through their problems, but even the previous incarnations that were successful had pain to begin with...

So successful that they sold the team for one British pound.

The chassis was good, the engine, nope, not good.

Didn't mention success, there was none till it was sold because all the research to get them up front had been done when they axed the project.Can't find links now, but what I remember was the Honda engine was well regarded. What leads you to believe the engine wasn't good?

I remember the Honda engine as being quite the disappointment because the performance of the car was very substandard. Honda as a works team was never a serious threat to win or even challenge for the title.

The performance of the car was substandard so we'll blame the engine?

Others memories, if true, of Brawn gp being surprised by the Merc engine hold weight in the view of the Honda engine but if that's all you have is overall package performance then I'll blame the engines for Haas not competing with Ferrari...

The works team that had a well regarded Honda engine and designed a chassis that won the WCC with an engine it wasn't designed around?

They are currently struggling, and may not get through their problems, but even the previous incarnations that were successful had pain to begin with...

So successful that they sold the team for one British pound.

The chassis was good, the engine, nope, not good.

Didn't mention success, there was none till it was sold because all the research to get them up front had been done when they axed the project.Can't find links now, but what I remember was the Honda engine was well regarded. What leads you to believe the engine wasn't good?

I remember the Honda engine as being quite the disappointment because the performance of the car was very substandard. Honda as a works team was never a serious threat to win or even challenge for the title.

You can bring up history all you want, but I'm going with 212 vs 11. You can choose the engine that gets all of 11 points this year as your ticket to success. I hope that McLaren does not and chooses an engine that can produce 212 championship points.

Fernando Alonso sees no hope with Honda and has as much vested interest in this decision as anyone. You dramatically overstated any so called "improvements" that Honda has made. Fernando continues to criticize the engine for being slow. "I've never raced with less power in my life". Classic.

I'm sorry man, but I think you're basing your outlook very much on the history of McLaren rather than the reality of McLaren.

McLaren have wealthy individuals, but they're also a business and there is nothing there to suggest they can come close to competing with the Big 3 financially without the backing of a manufacturer.

A switch to Renault is 100% an improvement short term, I don't think anyone will deny this. But the suggesting that McLaren could become McLaren-Renault WCC is dreaming. Renault now have their own team, which they'll back when they get up to speed; Red Bull have a Renault engine, and can outspend McLaren (and suspect they will look to get away from Renault as the works team progresses); McLaren have most likely lost a lot of very important talent to some of the big teams following their demise.

They need either a complete overhaul of F1, or manufacturer backing. Honda is the biggest gamble with no short term success, but is probably the only option they have which could have them hunting WDC/WCCs in 5 or 10 years. Going with Renault is accepting 4th place, possibly 5th if Renault are pursuing their own Mercedes-style project.

What you and others are ignoring is the fact that just having a manufacturer backing a team is no guarantee of success. Plenty of teams have had full backing of a manufacturer and not only failed, but some faded away into obscurity. Going from memory here: Arrows Porsche, Larrousse Lamborghni, Jordan Yamaha, McLaren Peugot, Ligier Renault, Jordan Honda, etc.

Plenty of teams have had manufacturer backing and failed miserably. Several with Honda. Honda was a failure when they were a full works team.

There's no reason to suspect Honda has what it takes to produce a championship winning engine. All available data says that they are far behind and incapable of overcoming this deficit.

I've got to agree here with Herb

Does anyone remember Toyota?

Being works is no path to guaranteed success. That is one of the biggest fallacies being spread around this forum. Yes there are advantages to having works status, but you need the manufacturer to be competent. In Honda's case, much like Toyota, they are clearly not.

As Zoue stated, no one is claiming that having manufacturer backing guarantees success, ONLY that it guarantees MONEY for as long as the partnership lasts. The difference in this particular situation is that the team in question is McLaren which, although they've lost key personnel, still employ a wealth of extremely capable designers & engineers and IN THE EVENT that Honda does get things turned around, sticking with them is the best bet because in the meantime, while they're struggling, they're not spending all their money on F1 operations. As such, if and when the eventual split transpires, McLaren could have enough pennies in their bank account to allow them to spend adequately once the Honda money is gone.

Either way, it has been widely reported that Sainz is replacing Palmer Effective immediately starting from the Malaysian GP onward, with Gasley taking his seat and Toro Rosso, with Honda becoming their Engine Supplier, effectively making Toro Rosso a true Works team for the first time in the teams entire history!!! I sooooooooo hope Honda get things right and that Toro Rosso becomes a powerhouse team and start challenging further up the field, even netting wins, however unlikely it may seem. If so it would be yet another decision that further handicaps Alonso's career progression, but all this is said to be netting him a new multi-year deal worth £20 Million per season, so either way he's going to do well for himself.